The Antecedents of Psychological Empowerment and Its Impact towards General Physician Job Performance

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The emergence of new infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 (Coronavirus Disease 19) creates a burden to the healthcare system especially to the front liners such as medical doctors. The job performance of the general practitioners related to quality of care to SARS-CoV2 patients.
 AIM: ​​The purpose of this study is to analyze the antecedents of psychological empowerment towards job performance, mediated by service orientation. These antecedents could be seen in hospital perspectives and professional life.
 
 METHODS: This is a quantitative survey study using a cross-sectional approach. 185 samples purposively obtained from the general practitioners who work at SARS-CoV-2 Reference Private Hospital in Jakarta and surrounding area. Data collection using online questionnaires and analyzed by SmartPLS 3.3.3™ .
 RESULTS: There are nine hypotheses that are supported in this research. The strongest predictor of psychological empowerment is the training opportunities, followed by relationships with fellow doctors and autonomy at work. Psychological empowerment has been proven to have a direct impact on job performance, while service orientation has been found as a mediation in this relationship.
 CONCLUSION: Psychological empowerment has been proven as an important construct to predict job performance, therefore hospital management has to pay more attention to psychological empowerment for GPs during the pandemic. Training opportunities should be prioritized by the board of directors of the hospitals, they should allocate time and the resources to facilitate the training opportunity.
 KEYWORDS: Psychological empowerment, service orientation, job performance, general practitioner, SARS-CoV-2 referral private hospital.